Hezbollah flags, we are all Hezbollah signs, more Hezbollah flags.… Read the rest
Ah, That’s a Relief
Aug 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘We only want to stop people from committing bad acts and help maintain the honor of Islam.’… Read the rest
Real Voices of Brick Lane are Silent
Aug 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Greer is assuming a community speaks with one voice; it is patronising and arrogant.’… Read the rest
Nicholas Humphrey’s Seeing Red
Aug 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘It is our experience of the inner world that confirms the existence of a person.’… Read the rest
BHL in Israel
Aug 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBehind the scenes, a fascism with an Islamist face.… Read the rest
Boldly Go
Aug 6th, 2006 10:55 pm | By Ophelia BensonYasmin Alibhai-Brown reviews Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism in the Indy.
Cosmopolitanism, in its reconstructed meaning, says Appiah, provokes attacks from the left for whom it is dilettante and elitist. The right despises it because cosmopolitans make bad nationalists and patriots. All authoritarians detest the internationalist spirit. Hitler and Stalin launched regular invectives against “rootless cosmopolitans”.
Yeah. And identitarians hate it, which is one reason it is worth trying to dispute identitarianism, especially of the solitarist variety, John Gray notwithstanding. Cosmopolitanism is a good thing. Cosmopolitanism is Sarajevo before everything went to hell.
… Read the restThe Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Human Values, Princeton no less, is not as bold as he could have been. A crucial treatise is rendered impotent by neat
The Solitarist View of Identity
Aug 6th, 2006 10:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonJohn Gray is not entirely convinced by Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence, despite his admiration.
… Read the restImpassioned, eloquent and often moving, Identity and Violence is a sustained attack on the “solitarist” theory which says that human identities are formed by membership of a single social group…There is a deeper unrealism in Sen’s analysis, which emerges in his inability to account for the powerful appeal of the solitarist view…Along with many liberal philosophers, he seems to think human conflict is a result of intellectual error. But if the error of solitarism is so blatantly obvious, why do large numbers of people continue to believe in it and act on it? Sen refers repeatedly to manipulation by malevolent propagandists…But are people really
First Chapter of Hofstadter Biography
Aug 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Hofstadter exhibited an enviable ability to connect with a large, critical, and politically conscious readership.’… Read the rest
Sam Tanenhaus Reviews Hofstadter Biography
Aug 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSome of his best-known ideas came in think pieces in general interest magazines.… Read the rest
Simon Blackburn on Plato’s Republic
Aug 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘If any books change the world, Republic has a good claim to first place.’… Read the rest
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on Cosmopolitanism
Aug 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe left sees cosmopolitanism as dilettante and elitist, the right sees it as unpatriotic.… Read the rest
John Gray on Sen’s Identity and Violence
Aug 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAttack on ‘solitarist’ theory that identities are formed by membership of a single social group.… Read the rest
Unedifying, Anti-Semitic, Wrong
Aug 5th, 2006 5:52 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is Jerry, so don’t blame OB for this post.
I’ve just returned from my protest against the awful anti-Israel, pro-Hizbullah march in London. Here are four pictures from the march.
Draw your own conclusions.… Read the rest
Tweaking
Aug 5th, 2006 5:18 pm | By Ophelia BensonInteresting. Mediawatchwatch points out that Germaine Greer’s defense of her article on the Brick Lane ruckus slightly adjusts what she said in the first article. It’s right there for all to see…
The community has the moral right to keep the film-makers out but they cannot then complain if somewhere else is used and presented to the world as Brick Lane.
… Read the restI have been accused of saying things I never said about Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane and the campaign to prevent its filming in the East End of London…Natasha Walter, writing on these pages, claims not to know what I could possibly mean by saying that the residents of Brick Lane have
Germaine Greer on Brick Lane Again
Aug 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSilently tweaks what she said the first time…… Read the rest
Protesters Call for Cease-fire in Lebanon
Aug 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMarch organized by the Stop The War Coalition.… Read the rest
Robert Wokler 1942-2006
Aug 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonContested with postmodernism the Enlightenment’s putative responsibility for the Holocaust.… Read the rest
Little Atoms
Aug 4th, 2006 6:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo didja listen to JS on Little Atoms? It was pretty funny, in an absurd sort of way. He has some kind of bee in his bonnet that people who sign the Euston Manifesto think it is going to set off a mass progressive movement. It turned up in that HERO interview too. HERO asked ‘Ophelia, you are a signatory to the Euston Manifesto, and Butterflies and Wheels is an affiliated site. What are your expectations of the movement for a rational left, and how much do you feel that blogging and, more widely, the internet has contributed to the timing of this development?’ and he answered –
… Read the restThe Euston Manifesto will die a quick death. There is no
The Transformational Power of Sex and Death
Aug 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIntelligent design is the bait on the barbed hook of creationist belief.… Read the rest
Dare to be Dumb
Aug 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn science, feeling confused is essential to progress; unwillingness to feel lost can stop creativity dead.… Read the rest